I got the fuel rail back from the machine shop and put it all back together. After chasing down a few leaks from the AN fittings on the fuel rail, this happened.
I got the fuel rail back from the machine shop and put it all back together. After chasing down a few leaks from the AN fittings on the fuel rail, this happened.
It is alive!
Some notes about the first start. The damn thing started and ran on the first try. It was obvious right away that it was running rich (around 10:1 AFR), but I expected that. The tune I'm running is for 158 cc/min injectors, and I'm running 330 cc/min to support E85. The tune settings were changed to account for that, and it wasn't the main issue. I forgot to change the load setting from ITB to alpha-N for first start, and my MAP signal is quite weak. So it was running at around 70% load. The TWM/Borla manifold that this tune is made for produces a strong, steady vacuum signal at idle. This setup does not. I checked for vacuum leaks around the intake and found none. So maybe I'll be running alpha-N. At anything above 20% throttle position (best case at higher RPMs), that's all ITB does in this tune anyway.
After switching to alpha-N, the idle mixture came up to about 12.5:1 and it smoothed out. I ran it at a high idle for about 10 minutes then at 2500 RPM for another 10 minutes to bed in the cam. No other fluid leaks and the engine temp peaked out at 180F when the cooling fan came on. There's some interesting valve noise going on, so I'll need to check the valve lash again soon.
The only thing not working for sure is the stock temperature sensor. I'm getting a valid fuel temperature from the flex fuel sensor, but the % of ethanol is only showing 1%. It's possible I got straight gasoline from the pump, so I need to go back and check what it actually was. I'm just so used to only having E10 available.
NOHOME said:It is alive!
berkeley yeah. About time.
Dang, that's awesome!! A first start is still a long-term daydream for me!
I'm glad the machine shop got that fuel rail part sorted out.
I can't believe it's been a month. We've had enough snow this month that I haven't done more than pull the car out of the garage and backed it in under it's own power. There's just too much crud on the roads to risk FODing the engine without an air filter. So the next step is to hook that up.
My idea for an intake tract is to weld together some aluminum tubing to attach to Richard Good's air filter setup. The output of this is a 3.5" tube, so I ordered some stock and started experimenting. Here's what it looks like so far.
Making up the flange took some trial and error. But now that I have a template, the other two should go better. It will soon be time to see how my new MIG gun does with aluminum.
Looks good to me.
Please give a full report on the spool gun. I used one about two decades ago, but since have only Tigged aluminum.
Yes, will be very interested in seeing how your spool gun works. Congrats on the first start, that is always a great feeling when it all goes as planned!
I wish I had a spool gun, but it's a normal MIG gun with a 0.035" liner. The last time I welded aluminum, keeping the gun liner as straight as possible and increasing wire stickout reduced birdnesting enough to finish the job, but I did waste lots of wire. I need a new stainless brush for cleaning, too.
Whoops, I misread that. Nevermind!
Time for another round of distractions. I've had my MSM in the garage to fix various things. It needed new clutch hydralics and a new cat/downpipe. There's over 100k on the Flyin Miata one, and it's starting to become aromatic. The O2 sensors (NB and WB) are both hopelessly stuck in the downpipe, so those are getting refreshed as well.
After sitting up on stands for two weeks, I finally got around to it. This is what I saw.
It appears the rear main seal has given up. Parts are on order and the transmission is almost out. In the mean time, this car is taking up my space to do welding, so not much is getting done on the TR6.
The Miata is done and shifts much better now. Apparently some guy (me) damaged the pilot bearing when installing the clutch a few years ago. This time I made up some alignment pins to ensure the input shaft was completely lined up before heaving ho. This car is in really good shape now except for the typical rear fender dog leg rust. Maybe it's time to order some patch panels.
The problem now is that I'm out of cutoff wheels. That's pretty essential, right? So it looks like I'll be stopping by Home Depot along with my weekly grocery store run.
Just watch out for those cutoff wheels, they tend to bit when you least suspect them!
And yes, both Lowes and Home Depot have been pretty busy when I have been there. Guess the government knows that if we are going to stay at home, we need parts to work our projects, so they are essential businesses......
I couldn't find cutoff wheels to fit my 4.5" angle grinder (the arbor won't clamp down on them) or a RotoZip tool (just not available locally), but had one for a 30 year old Makita angle grinder. My Dremel tool died while making some finer cuts, but the old Makita works pretty well.
So here's my plan for finishing the intake. Rather than cut one long flange piece that spans all of the throttles, I made three separate flanges and aligned the extra material on the ends. They fit like this.
After cutting the flanges down I can fit them to the throttles, clamp the extra material between and weld them together out of the car. This will act as an alignment plate for welding the short intake tubes to the larger main tube. It looks like I can tack the runner tubes to the main, pull the flange off, and finish welding the runners.
Once the flanges are welded on, the extra joining material will be cut away. I should drill out the collector tube where the intake runners join before welding everything together, but that can probably be done later.
BTW, I'm doing this much more safely than usual. It would be nice to avoid trips to the emergency room right now.
I 100% endorse the use of a vice for this process 
dherr (Forum Supporter) said:I 100% endorse the use of a vice for this process
Grammar note:
Using a vise will hold your part firmly in place while you grind on it.
Using a vice will have a hooker doing your grinding for you.
Nice catch! One man's vise is another man's vice.... each one has a purpose!
I'll try to avoid using a vice in the garage.
In reply to JoeTR6 (Forum Supporter) :
Either way, man, I don't judge!
It was warm enough today to hit the garage for a couple of hours. I set up the welder for aluminum, but the only wire I have is 0.030". At least it was a new spool. The first few test welds went well, so I attempted to weld the flanges together. From that point on, a rat's nest occurred about half of the time I pulled the trigger. Once the arc is going, it welds fine. Maybe 0.035" wire would be stiffer and avoid this, but it might also fit tighter in the gun liner (which is 0.035"). At least the flange plate is welded together and fits the throttles.
Since I'm also low on argon, I may just tack this together and hand it to a professional.
I may have just dodged a bullet on the intake project. Yesterday I tacked the runner tubes on and everything lined up great. Repositioning the welder to straighten out the gun nearly eliminated the wire snarls. The flange was installed and the intake test fit on the car.
So feeling good about this, I pulled the flange off and started welding the runner tubes. This went well until the shield gas started running low, but I managed to finish welding the runners. A few wire feed issues kept my pace down, so I thought I had let the intake cool enough between welds and moved around enough to distribute heat. When done, the flange would no longer fit over the runners. Drinking ensued.
This morning, I figured out what had happened. Welding the runners on the ends caused the main tube to oval, pushing those runners farther out and inwards along the flange. Some work with a Harbor Freight press had things lining up better. Carefully adjusting with clamps and a rubber mallet got the flange back on. Disaster avoided, I began cleaning up welds (which weren't very pretty before).
This may just work.
The intake is almost done. Two days ago I was welding on the end cap and just couldn't get a decent bead. I was also having too many wire feed snarls. When I realized I had earlier pulled the gun to clear a wire jam but neglected to reseat it fully leaking out most of the shield gas, it was quitting time. Yesterday, I upped the shield gas flow from 25 to 30 CFH, and this made the welds much cleaner and eliminated the snarls. So the welding is now done. You can tell which welds were done last as my technique/aim improved.
Unfortunately, there's still some grinding to do. I'm thinking some black crinkle paint will finish this off and hide the imperfections.
Not wanting to do more metal work today, I tackled some wiring/tuning issues. Swapping two wires on the hazard switch got the hazard blinkers and turn signals functioning. Also, the coolant sender that I got from BPNW has the wrong resistances to work with the stock temperature gauge. An old original sender got the gauge to read just below half with the Megasquirt showing 190F, which is about right. I was also seeing the brake/oil pressure warning light, and fixed that by raising the high oil pressure limit in the Megasquirt tune. The oil pressure at idle is around 60 PSI, so I may use the bypass oil line that goes directly to the head. This increases oiling to the valve train and tappets at the expense of the bearings, but there seems to be plenty of oil pressure to go around.
Next up is wiring the gearbox switches and figuring out why the flex fuel sensor only works for several seconds.
Coming along, Joe!
The intake is done. It even fits in the car. There was just a slight amount of warping from welding the flanges, but the attachment studs close up any gaps. I suppose I should make some thin gaskets to seal it up.
I'm still thinking this should be black as there's enough shiny aluminum bling in there already. That, and I really do not want to polish this thing.
I wonder if there will be any power lost from not having air horns. If/when I take this to a dyno, it would be interesting to have a set of air horns on hand to test that. Unfortunately, they are $40 x 6.
Looks killer, man. Love it.
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